The present disclosure generally relates to vehicle footrests, and more particularly relates to an energy-absorbing footrest in a vehicle and a method for providing a tunable footrest in a vehicle.
During a frontal vehicle crash, load can be generated along an axis of the vehicle occupant's tibia through inertia of the occupant and/or intrusion of the dash portion of the vehicle (e.g., dash lower area). To reduce this load, an energy-absorbing mechanism can be interposed between the occupant's foot and the vehicle structure on which the occupant's foot rests. Energy-absorbing vehicle footrests are generally known. Moreover, some current footrest designs can be tuned for energy absorption, however, such tuning can be difficult and particular load profiles are not easily specified.